Wonderful! - Wonderful! 336: You Can't Be Brat and Frasier

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Griffin's favorite ahead-of-its time, groundbreaking, exhausting, sci-fi survival TV-watching experience! Rachel's favorite relatable Shrek-inspired musical artist! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya World Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/

["Summer's Theme Song"] Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is wonderful. This is Showy Talk About Things We like that's good that we're into. Happy Brat Summer, everybody. Do you, can you?

Yes. So everything, I know, I know fucking everything. This is the Charlie. Charlie XTX. Yeah, but like, is it a song? Is it the name of the album? It's the name of the album? It's the name of the album.

Okay. It's Brat. And it's like, it's the album art is just green and it has in font, I wanna say like Calibri or it's just a very straightforward bog standard. Because that was my number one question. What is the font associated with Brat? I wanna say Calibri or perhaps impact. Okay, and to say that something is brat is what?

First of all, is that the appropriate way to use it? It's actually pronounced brat. It's a celebration of sausage. But I wouldn't say somebody is a brat. I would say something is brat. I would leave out the uh. You know, I don't think you're gonna get in, actually, if you said that person's a brat,

you're right, that's no good. It does have to be, it does have to be in that sense. Yeah. Okay, and is it like, what is it? It's a fucking banger album full of nonstop house bank. What does it mean to say something is Brad? Well, Vice President Harris, Brad. Okay, yes, I have heard that.

But that comes straight from the top, that comes straight from Charlie herself. Okay, yes. So like, and please understand, that's all I know. Okay, okay, see, I believe when we started this conversation, you told me you knew everything. I think Tim Walz is also brat at this, I think by- Is it just cool? Is it just like cool and badass and like,

or is it like qualified to be president? Yeah. When she created this album. When Charli XCX created the album, it was her way of sort of pre-endorsing whoever would. At that moment, she thought it was gonna be Joe Biden. And she was like, I guess Joe Biden's brat. Cause he's gonna be, I guess he's gonna be the guy.

Is there a song on the album called Brat? I don't think so. I don't actually believe so. So I would have to listen to the old album to figure out. Yeah, and let me tell you, you're doing yourself a favor. Okay. It's fucking a banger. My small wonder, that album rips ass start to finish.

Okay, great. Von Dutch, Rewind, 360, it's amazing. It's very, very, very good. I started listening to it just in the car and I'm never doing anything or going anywhere cool enough to deserve the beats I'm getting, the beats I'm receiving from children. Have you played it for our children?

No, but I'm sure I will in our car ride today. Yeah. Do you have a small wonder? I guess, I mean, it's a little presumptuous or preemptive perhaps, but we are going to the beach and we are able to drive there. And it doesn't take all day. And that is new for us and I'm excited about it.

Yeah, the best we had living in Austin was South Padre Island, which I have a lot of affection for. But it took us like seven hours to get there. Port Aransas, I think was closer. Port A, yeah. But it's still like six hours. Still not great, yeah. But we're heading up somewhere for a nice vacay,

nice little getaway. I'm excited, we've been talking about doing it for a while. We said we move up here. We are beginning year three in DC now. Shit, you're right. So we're like real, real urban. Cool. Cool, sophisticated.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh., I'm not sophisticated. I'm a man without a country. At least you didn't talk about Frasier in that moment. It shows a lot of growth for you. Why would I talk about Frasier? Because we were talking about sophisticated. That's the height of sophistication.

I've moved past, I'm in my post Frasier. You can't be brat and Frasier. What is Frasier? Frasier is like- Who would be Frasier if Kamala is Brat? I mean, I think we know who's Frasier. No. Trump and Frasier.

Wow. Trump, Frasier. And you can quote me on that. You can quote me on that. You can quote me on that. Trump Frazier, people will be like, what is that? They're like, I don't know, Griffin said it. I'm quoting him. You don't even want to put an is in there?

Nope, because it's not grammatically correct. It's like how you don't say a brat. No, but you say is brat. No, just Trump Frazier. You don't just say Kamala brat. Kamala brat. Kamala brat, Trump Frazier. You don't just say Kamala Bratt. Kamala Bratt. Kamala Bratt, Trump Frazier. That's, and I support this message.

There is something about that that sounds like Benjamin Bratt, and I'm a little distracted by that. I can't believe we jumped over, because it seemed like life with comedic opportunity, the idea that the Charlie XCX named an album Brat, because she loves Bratwurst so much. And it's just that Charlie XCX named an album Brot because she loves Brot worse so much. And it's just a soft, it's just an album. Here's the thing, for me, that's the end of the joke.

Is there more? Like I wouldn't know how to yes and that. Yeah, you're right. There must be nothing there. She named it Brot because she loves Brot. Yeah. Period. Period, I guess that's the end of the joke.

You're right. Hey, I go first this week, and I'm gonna talk about a little television show, one that you've probably seen in our Netflix watch history that you've maybe been a little bit confused about. I have been traveling a lot recently, spending a lot of time in hotel rooms by myself. On my most recent trip, I was in Indianapolis for Gen Con.

Met a lot of really cool folks there, but I also spent a lot of time in my room just scrolling through Netflix, looking for something to watch when something caught my eye that I was like, I wonder what dipping that, dipping back into that would be like. Oh, I think I know what it is. It's a little ABC soft sci-fi survival drama called Lost.

Now here's the thing about Lost. Did you watch it? I did, I watched it in real time. Loved it. I can't imagine it holds up, does it? It's a mixed bag. Okay. I have a very soft spot in my heart for this show

because I was also watching it when it was coming out. And I have a lot of fondness for shows that I watched that were like part of a zeitgeist when they first came out. And Lost is, in my book, one of the most zeitgeisty like television shows of all time. Next month marks the 20th anniversary of Lost's debut, debuted in 2004, which is fucking crazy.

Whew. It ran for six seasons and I watched all of it. And for a lot of those seasons, I watched it with friends. We would like get together on, I think it was like Wednesday nights that it aired and we would like in our apartments or like basements or whatever, we would get together to watch Lost for-

Were there any themed snacks? There were no themed snacks, no. We weren't like, I don't know, we didn't have access to that kind of income. Like hurly-curlies? Hurly-curlies would be delicious. There's like not a lot of other shows I can think of that I watched on a more social basis

other than The Bachelor, which is probably why I harbor so much fondness for it. As for if it holds up, I don't know that I am going to, I watched like seven or eight episodes of it while I was on this most recent tour and I enjoyed it. I don't know that I'm going to like really stick with rewatching it because if you know what's coming,

I feel like it does take away from some of the propulsive force of that show. But I still think it is a really, really interesting special show that was like very ahead of its time and frankly changed a lot of like what we know as, you know, television on major cable channels forever. Well, and it scratches a lot of our itches in that it has like a kind of survivor element,

which of course we love. And you know, there's like a little bit of sci-fi, which is just the right amount of sci-fi for me. Exactly. There's romance. There's romance. There's mystery. Friendship, action.

Combat. Mystery. So if you've never watched Lost, which like in my mind, I just assume everyone has, but then I realized it's 20 years old. And so maybe that's not true. There are people listening to this that were babies when Lost was out. Yeah, exactly.

So Lost is a TV show about a group of castaways from all walks of life. They survive a plane crash on a remote island and very quickly find out they are not getting rescued. There is no, they were way off course. There is no way that they are going to be found. And so together they have to figure out how to survive and like make a life for themselves on this island

while also figuring out this just cornucopia of mysteries surrounding this island. In literally every episode of Lost. Something happens that is fucked up and weird. That is like, what? Why is that? Why is that there? It happened, it starts immediately like episode one.

Oh, there's a big, there's some sort of big monster in the jungle that's like killing people. And then, oh, there's polar bears in the jungle for some, why is there a polar bear here? How early is polar bear? I was wondering about that. Episode two. Yeah, cause I polar bears in the jungle for some, why is there a polar bear here? How early is polar bear? I was wondering about that. Episode two. Yeah, because I remember like, when the show ended, it was still like, okay, but why a polar bear?

Why a polar bear there? There's a radio broadcasting a set of numbers that one of the survivors used to win the lottery. Like, there's a huge statue of a human foot with four toes. Like everything, every episode had something in it that would make the audience go like, okay, but what does that, what's that mean? Infamously, I will say, Lost asks all of these questions

and then goes literal years without addressing them again, if at all. And I don't even think it's strong as supporters think it like really stuck the landing on all of those mysteries. If you ever wanna, after you've watched the show or at least given it a shot, if you go on the Lost Wiki, the amount of like red string connecting the dots

that people have done in order to make it make sense is impressive. It feels like they had like a big bowl with a bunch of stuff in it and every week they were like, all right, I got Polar Bear, let's put it in. Yes, exactly. The show experienced something of a decline in viewership after the first three seasons

because I think folks were just exhausted trying to like keep track of everything. They just kept adding more stuff, you know? Like it wasn't like we added something and then later we resolve it. It's like that is unresolved and now we added a new thing that is also unresolved. Exactly.

I have not watched Lost since I finished the finale back in 2010, which is a, it is not the most beloved finale, series finale in the history of television, because the odds were very stacked against it, because by the time that the finale came around, there were still all these questions that people had, and I, looking back, I like it.

I think it was a fine finale. It made me, it had a lot of emotional resonance, but it just did not, it didn't check all of these like mystery boxes that then you think like, well I guess I'll just fucking never know, cause now the show's done. Yeah, and I will say like without spoiling the ending, like the way it ends is something that people

started hypothesizing right away. Yes. So it was a little unsatisfying, cause it was like, oh yeah, no, that is something that people talked about. I feel like the show taught me how to set my expectations for the series finale of television shows I enjoyed in a way that has been truly helpful

where I'm just like, you know, I'm not gonna expect everything to be tied up in a little bow because if you do, you're gonna be so pissed off when you finish watching this show. But like, it's, life's about the journey, and not the destination. And all along the way, there are these

truly unforgettable moments that happen. To prepare for this segment, I was watching like a top 20 list of the most unforgettable lost moments. Every single one of them hit. Every single one of them was like, oh shit, that's right. Yeah. And watching those moments in real time as the show aired with a group of friends,

literally screaming, like, was really, truly a wonderful TV watching experience. I can't help it. Can I ask you something? Yeah, sure. Oh, oh man, I'm gonna have to remember both the characters, Jack, right? Yeah. Jack is Matthew man, I'm gonna have to remember both the characters. Jack, right?

Jack is Mathew hot. Were you a Jack or a Sawyer? Sawyer. Well, no, I don't really own either of that. I don't think either of them were great. I was a Hurley, I was a Charlie. Charlie. Oh, and Claire.

Claire, Locke, I mean, Saeed, Boon. Just naming characters is bringing a lot back to me. That's what I'm saying, like, this is what is so good about the show. Like, it keeps you hooked, it keeps you enraptured because you had no idea what was going to happen next, and you had to watch to find out. But it was really effective at that

because the show's ensemble cast was really fucking strong. Really, really, really, really strong. All of these strangers become incredibly close to one another throughout the show's run, which creates all these really memorable moments in between these inscrutable, weird things happening all the time. There's one episode where they invent golf.

They start to figure out how to play golf on the island. There's one episode where I think Hurley finds a VW bus on the island and is like, let's see if we can get it going. And everyone's like, you're out of your fucking mind. But it's just a silly diversion that everybody gets really into. It was filmed in Hawaii, right? Isn't that the thing? I think so, yes.

I wanna say so. The TV landscape is so different now. Like this was pre-streaming. This was a pre-streaming era. Well, oh, but by the end of it, there was streaming. Yes, okay. Because I remember like towards the end, I didn't have a television

and so I was watching it on my computer the day after. Oh, okay. And so I would like avoid Facebook, like don't tell me what happened. Yeah, but you had to go to like abc.com. Yes, 100%. Yes, but in 2004, there was nothing like it. There were no shows out there doing what Loss was doing

at the scale that Loss was doing it. I'm not sure there's a ton of shows now that are doing it like this. And that means that like the show wasn't just sort of ahead of its time. Like I don't know that there's ever going to be a TV show lost again because it was the biggest thing in the world. It was the biggest show in the world.

Literally just everyone was watching it and everyone was talking about it. When you went to the grocery store and you checked out, every magazine had, because there were a million cast members on this show. True. And they were all beautiful. Like every single one was just like, there's Matthew Fox, there's Evangeline Lilly.

There's the, it just, the whole, just the whole crew was, was featured so heavily. Everyone was trying to figure out what was going on. Everyone was talking about their show. And it was really cool to like kind of be a part of that. Even when the conversation around the show was like, man, I don't know, I don't know what they're doing anymore. Even though like it is hard to talk about this show

without kind of like getting these feelings mixed in of like, they wrote a lot of checks that did not cash quite properly. Yeah, it's weird. I think because of the sci-fi element, right? Like I, it is rare that people are like so critical and precise about the end of a show, you know? I mean, people obviously have feelings about it, but it's not like, well, in episode seven,

you said this and then you didn't do it. It was just that like, there was so many things. It was at its heart, a mystery show. Like it was at its heart, a mystery of like, what is going on in this island? Can't you, I can still like hear the like little stingers they would do in my head. Yeah.

Ooh. Yeah. I don't, as I was like finishing writing this segment, I was like, I usually do my usual like, so check it out, I don't know who I would recommend this show to. Because it definitely moves at a bit of a slow pace. I will say for a show that is 20 years old,

overall the quality is pretty good, pretty stellar. You know what, it would have been a good new baby show. Maybe. It might have been a good, I feel like the vibes are sometimes a bit harsh. Maybe that's true. Another reason that this show was very compelling is it was not afraid to kill off major characters.

And I can't think of a lot of big, major network television shows that would just be like mid season and now that guy's fucking dead. Like I don't think there were a ton of them. And so that was always, I don't know, it always felt like there was a real risk associated with. Did they have an intro like a,

there wasn't like a song, right? Or like a- No, it was just the, the word lost would just kind of fly in towards the screen while a scary horn was like- Yeah, cause I was like, I can't picture like a bunch of people on the beach. Well, we're by Saturday night and we're cashing up plane and we don't have any food and now we're going insane.

It's lost, lost, lost. Like somebody looking up from a coconut and like smiling at the camera. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know if you should watch Lost. If you've never watched Lost, I think as just sort of a cultural relic, it is worth watching.

And if you don't know where the show goes and the twists and turns, it's a fun little water slide to go zipping down. You just have to allow yourself to not put the piece, not try to fit all the pieces together and make that be the sole motivation of watching the show, because I don't know that you will love it for that, but I don't know, man, as just like a neat sci-fi drama

with great characters and a lot of really memorable moments, I think it holds up. I do think it holds up. So yeah. That's Lost. That's Lost. Can I steal you away? and a lot of really memorable moments. I think it holds up. I do think it holds up. So yeah, that's Lost. That's Lost. Can I steal you away? Yes. ["Lost"]

I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty.

This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varnie is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

And remember, no running in the halls. Okay. My topic this week is a musical artist. Yes. Which is difficult for me because I don't, as evidenced by our earlier conversation, I'm not up on top of a lot of the music. But I sought this out.

Occasionally I just kind of click around until I find something and I listen to a bunch of things, and that is how I found Allegra Krieger. Yes. Yeah. You sent me a link to one of their songs. I, you know what was interesting is that I heard it and I was like, I bet Griffin's gonna like this.

I do like that. I mean, I like a- Very chill vibes. Chill vibes, female vocalist, like with a great voice and chill vibes. Yeah, it is difficult to find. She is still, I mean, she's been at this for a while, but her albums didn't really bubble up until 2023.

Her breakthrough album was I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane. And then she has a new one coming out in September called Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine, which whoo. Great name. Very Fiona Apple, Sufjan Stevens conventions. I wouldn't say Fiona Apple. I wouldn't say Fiona Apple.

She's real folky. Oh, I'm talking about the title of the song. Oh, okay. I thought you were comparing. It has very, the spinning wheel. Yeah, the idle wheel. The idle wheel. Yeah, mm-hmm.

Yeah. I also love Allegra's story. Like currently she is an artist living in New York, which is not unusual for a musical act. But she grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. Okay. Took piano and dance lessons, began writing songs at age eight.

And then she moved to Pennsylvania, and her access to music was really limited. She grew up very religious, very Catholic, and she was very active in the church until she was an older teenager. And then the way that she got connected to music is just very relatable for somebody who grew up like in Missouri like I did.

You know, it's not like a really, it's difficult to find your like happening cultural scenes. So her, and she mentioned this in multiple interviews. She said that one of the transformative experiences for her musically was hearing the version of hallelujah that is in Shrek. Can I be honest? Yes.

I feel that in such a big way. That it is, if we could take a brief aside. Yeah. It's fucking crazy that there is, that one, Shrek has a hallelujah needle drop. It's crazy. That is kind of a crazy moment. It's crazy. It's like Smash Mouth, at the Smash Mouth bookends,

Smash Mouth at the beginning, Smash Mouth at the end with I'm a Believer. Somewhere in there we're gonna get in fucking hallelujah for a deep and tender moment. I rewatched that scene after I read this interview because I was like, I remember that that song's in there. Shrek, as you'll recall. Please.

Has kind of a fight with Donkey. Yeah. With who? I'm not doing it. Please. I can't a fight with Donkey. Yeah. With who? I'm not doing it. Please. I can't. Just try it. I don't know how.

Just try it. If it's not good, I bet Rachel will cut it out. Just try it. You can do this. Everything in your life has been building up to this moment. You're having heart palpitations. Because you know I can't do accents. It's not even an accident. It's true. And I don't have that skill that Travis does I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those.

I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those.

I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those.

I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. I'm not gonna do any of those. That's pretty good, babe. Is this my thing that I have? It's pretty good, babe.

All right, anyway. He's having a fight with Donkey. He walks away on his own because he's a loner fundamentally. And then Hallelujah plays. The version on the soundtrack is Rufus Wainwright, but in the film it is John Cale. Okay. Anyway, she heard that song in Trek,

said she was moved to tears, and then found the Jeff Buckley version, which is a key influence for her. Okay, I can see that. So anyway, the song I wanted to play is called, Lingering, and this is Allegra Krieger. ["Lingering"] speaker. There's a man across the street who looks in at me. And when you call in the evening, there's an old light lingering around everything. So this is one of those situations where I heard it and I had an influence in my head.

And then you know how you're kind of trying to find the interview that acknowledges that influence. The read I got was Judy Sill. Oh yeah, for sure. Which she does cite as an influence for her. She talks a lot about kind of like the spirituality and like the mysticism of Judy Sill. I'm such a sucker for that shit.

Yeah, that's why I thought I was like, oh, I bet Griffin will like this. Cause I definitely felt that when I heard this song. The video is actually really cool too. Did you watch the video? Yes, the video made me very nervous. And let me just say the video is like filmed in reverse. Yeah.

It's outdoors in New York. It's her like walking down streets. Walking down the streets, but it's in reverse. So clearly she was walking backwards down the streets of New York. Cause she keeps looking over her shoulder. Extraordinarily dangerous though. Would not recommend.

Would not recommend. I love your music. It would be tragic if you were to get bused by a bus because you were filming a backwards music video. I know that the artistic temptation is very strong there, but I would encourage maybe for your next video, less jaywalking. I think generally you would encourage less Jaywalking.

It depends on the context. And the location. And the location. I Jaywalk here all the fucking time. Me too. Oh, I mean. I feel like in DC it's okay because it's such a fast, busy politics city

that like there's always senators and people like running across the street, like chasing lobbyists and journal it. Like it's really like house of cards here every day. Another influence she said, she said in this interview, this is a Rolling Stone article actually, they just came out in June, 2024.

She said, quote, we didn't have a record store where I lived in Florida. And so she was in a record store and she saw Elliot Smith's Either or. Oh, fuck. She had a record player that she had gotten at Urban Outfitters. And so she brought that up.

That's really good. It's just very relatable. It's extremely relatable. For like a kid growing up in an area that like is a big city, but like has a lot of suburban pockets that just feel like anywhere else in the country. To have a record player you got at Urban Outfitters. What a pick also to be at a record store,

not really knowing the lay of the land and see Elliot Smith's Either or and being like, what are with this guy? What are with this guy's deals all about? She said, and this is also very relatable, that she had the kind of a lot of sad times in high school. Yeah, it'll get you there, man. And Elliott Smith, number one.

Holy shit, the fucking, the standard for sad high school times or college times, man. Yeah, or really any times. Or any times, if you're sad. He's there for you. So she moved to Boston, enrolled at the Berklee College of Music for two semesters and then dropped out and kind of wandered the country.

She lived in North Carolina on a farm for a while and then worked at a bar. She did some tree planting in Georgia for a while. She worked at a roadside motel in California. Jesus Christ, did she poke her face? What's going on? That's a lot of gigs to happen so quick. She is actually currently a bartender,

at least as of this interview. That's great. As of this interview, she's about to go on this big tour. Washington DC, by the way, is one of her stops. Yeah, let's do it. But she mentions like, I guess I'll have to quit the bar when I go on tour, but they'll take me back.

It's like a real like friendly, like family environment. I love that. Basically suggesting like, I'm not huge. Yeah. This may not last. Right. Like I am talking to Rolling Stone right now. Yeah.

But like, I still have a job. But my true passion is planting trees in Georgia. Yeah. The other thing I will say that is very relatable about her is her kind of her entrance into music in general. I found this interview in Our Culture that came out in 2023. And she says, quote,

basically I started playing guitar because I was moving around a lot and I didn't have a piano. I initially started playing piano when I was young. I really saw music, guitar and songwriting as a friend to me, literally just something I could do when I was alone in some weird ass place. I love that.

I just developed a relationship with it over time and then it started to become like a release, some catharsis and a means of processing things. Then whenever I moved to New York, because I was so distant in all of my relationships with people, I think that music felt it was like one of my closer relationships and I just wanted to develop that more.

So yeah, I mean, it just seems like she kind of fell into it. Like obviously music and dance were something that was important to her, but she didn't have big dreams of being a singer-songwriter and then now that's exactly what she is. Yeah. So yeah, that's Allegra Krieger. Her new album is coming out September 13th.

Again, that's called Art of the Unseen Infinity. But if you wanna check out, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane, that is what I have been listening to lately. Hell yeah. Do you wanna know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes. Here's one from KO who says,

I love taking the dust jacket off a hardcover book and finding alternate cover art or fancy gold embossing. I don't get hardcovers often, but when I do it's like finding a secret art surprise. I adore this. Me too. It brings to mind our library growing up, the Cabell County Public Library, would do book sales a lot as they would clear out inventory

and I would go and buy these books for 50 cents just because they looked like the hardcover, embossing looked like an incredible fancy tome of some sort. Can I ask you as somebody that is a published book author, is there like a cover process? Like, is there like a sit down here, five covers, let's choose the cover or do you kind of suggest? Unsurprisingly carry spearheads most of that.

You don't sit down and say like, this is what I want on my cover. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is entirely. I guess graphic novels are a little different than like a long form zero picture book. Sort of, yes. I mean, I guess there is sort of the,

you've established the norm of there being a lot of art on the cover, like a lot happening on the cover because there's a lot happening inside the book. For the TAS graphic novels, there is something of a formula. If you look at all of them lined up, like the three are usually in some sort of triangular orientation in different orders.

Kerry was talking about at the Gen Con panel we did, how the suffering game has the last of the possible combinations of the three boys on the front cover. So maybe on book seven, there will be none of them. Book seven will just be a, no, that's not a scoop or anything. Cecil says, and this is more of a correction

than a small wonder, Griffin, it is a dual disc. The arm apparatus is a dual disc. This is in regards to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Olympian, Noah Lyles, who's been crushing it. I don't know if you've followed, there's something in these cards that is giving him power. Anyway, I called it a deck. Anyway, Cecil says, the deck goes inside.

The dual disc shuffles the deck and you pick them up one by one and the five around the disc, though not a circle or a real disc, I know it's the guy you were talking about, are your current hand. Calling it a machine deck is wrong because that's what Bandit Keith has.

He has a machine deck, a deck full of machine type monsters. But everyone has a dual disc, no matter full of machine type monsters, but everyone has a duel disc, no matter what specialization the duelist has, everyone in consecrated dueling tournaments that is. You are reading this in a stern tone. We do not know that that's what was intended, but I do like- I know for sure that is.

I do like somebody approaching this like a medical doctor with like the somber, like Griffin. You're in dangerous territory. I don't know how to read Griffin, it is a dual disc. The arm apparatus is a dual disc in any turn other than Stern. But that's what I deserve. That's what I pride myself on.

I mean, it's fair. It's fair. You dipped your toe in, you know, unknown waters. I think there's probably a lot of people who know who I am, who have followed my work, who would be shocked at how much I don't know about Nekia. We've talked about this. Fucking nothing, except for there's the blue-eyes

white dragon and Exodia is a guy where if you get all five of the right cards, you instantly win the game. That's insane to me, that's wild, but that's basically it. I think he has like a pyramid that lets him transform into like a cool guy form like Stefan or Kel, and the spirit of his grandpa is like inside of his cards or something, this is all I know. Yeah, I think there's a story here about people

that got really into Pokemon and not into Yu-Gi-Oh. Like there's some dividing line here that I think is probably pretty common and I'm curious about it. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that if you're like a sports guy and you look at me, you're like, look at that dweeb. But I feel a certain inauthenticity because I don't know about Yu-Gi-Oh.

I don't know about Digimon. You think that's the final piece for you? I don't know about Digimon. I don't know about, this isi-Oh, I don't know about Digimon. You think that's the final piece for you? I don't know about Digimon, I don't know about, this is not coming from a judgmental place, it's just I don't know about Yo-Kai Watch. I do know a little bit about Yo-Kai Watch, but not a lot, not a lot, not a lot.

Anyway, selective knowledge I possess. Thank you so much to Bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org, check out all the great shows that they have over there. And check out all the great merch we have

over at MacRoyMerch.com. We got a new Trav Nation sticker. We got some new Munch Squad merch over there. And 10% of all proceeds this month go to World Central Kitchen. And we got some shows coming up for Mbembem and Taz. We're gonna be in Portland and Phoenix and Indianapolis. Now, you've already did Indianapolis.

We're going back, if you can believe it. Oh, you are? Yeah, we are. Well, we didn't do any shows when we were at Gen Con. Yeah, that's true. We're doing panels, so we're heading. By popular demand. By popular demand.

Indianapolis slaps, by the way. It kicks ass. We should all go on that tour. Anyway, all that's coming up, you can go to bit.ly slash McRoy tours to find out more. I think that's it. Thank you so much for listening. Sorry this episode's late.

See the aforementioned insane amount of travel we have been doing. We're leaving today, as Rachel also mentioned, to go to the beach. And one of our kids, and I won't name names, hasn't slept very good lately. So our nighttime recording sessions have been somewhat interrupted.

Well, I will say his sleep has been pretty normal. The time he chooses to go to bed is what is different. It's all, and it's no joke, I can think of like half a dozen times where he has slept amazing. And then the one night a week where it's like, we really need to get, we got to record Wonderful Tonight. He's like, actually, no. He's like a spiteful collaborator in the podcasting sense.

You know, the thing is, is that he's like a real jock. He really is. If he heard me talking about Yu-Gi-Oh cards, he would, he's not tall enough to wedgie me But he would figure he would climb me up me shadow of the closet style and you even me referencing shadow of the classes Yeah, I don't intensify the wedgie. Maybe he gets that from me because I don't know what you're talking about right now perfection Money won't pay, what can I pay? I'm on my way I'm on my way